She’s owned this office for close to thirty years.
When she offered me the chance to work alongside her to get my bearings after I graduated from college, I jumped on the opportunity.
I moved into an empty office when one of the other counselors relocated to Boston.
I’ve been here ever since.
“You’re free.” Audrey swings her arms at her sides. “Everyone is free. We’re closed that day in honor of my wedding.”
Fuck.I know what’s sitting on the tip of her tongue.
“You’ll come if I invite you, won’t you?” Her eyelashes flutter. “I want the whole gang there.”
The people who work at Dehaven Center have never been agang.
Seeing Wren is not at the top of my list of things to do, and I know she’ll be there. I’m not one for coming up with excuses on the fly, so I buy myself some time. “I’m going to run to get a coffee before my next appointment. Do you want one?”
“Two sugars and a splash of cream.” She sets off toward her desk. “Oh, and before I forget, I’m leaving a few minutes early today. I have an appointment with a florist for the wedding. Wild Lilly is the name the shop.”
“Lilac,” I correct as I breeze past her desk on my way to the elevator. “It’s Wild Lilac, Audrey.”
Pushing open the double glass doors, I stroll through before I jab a finger into the elevator call button.
“My lilac,” I let the words slip off my tongue in a whispered tone. “She’s my wild lilac.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Athena
Openingthe small heart-shaped gold locket in my hands, I squint at the faded pictures of an older man and woman. I’ve been doing the same thing every week or two since I was ten-years-old.
I should be ashamed of myself.
The locket doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to a man my mom had a one-night stand with twenty-four years ago.
He took her home after they met at a bar. When she woke, he was still asleep, so she filled her pockets with whatever she could fit in them and took off.
Nine months later, I was born.
She never told the man she slept with that he had a daughter. She didn’t tell the other two men she had one-night stands with that she was carrying their sons.
My two younger brothers have no idea who their fathers are either.
Every few years after we were all born, my mom would get married in an attempt to give us a father figure.
It wasn’t until her third marriage that everything changed. She married Jeremy’s dad, and we finally had a family, including an older brother.
Now, my mom and my stepfather, Craig Weston, are in prison.
I still have a family, but there are questions too. Questions about the man my mom took this locket from.
Ending her call, Audrey finally turns back to me with a bright smile. “That took forever, didn’t it?”
Fourteen minutes, but it felt like forever.
Audrey’s been at Wild Lilac for more than an hour waiting on her matron-of-honor to show up, but from what I just overheard, the woman is miles away from Manhattan.
“It looks like I’m going to do this on my own.” Slapping her hands together, she braces her designer heels a few inches apart as if she’s readying for a battle. “I think I know exactly what I want.”
